Measurement of social power, opportunity costs, and the theory of two‐person bargaining games

Several authors have recently suggested measuring social power in terms of its effects; that is, in terms of the changes that A can cause in B's behavior. This paper argues that an adequate measure of power must also contain information on the two parties' opportunity costs—the costs to A of acquiring or using his power over B , which the paper calls the costs of A 's power; and the costs to B of noncompliance, which measure the strength of B 's incentives to compliance, and which the paper calls the strength of A 's power over B . For bilateral power situations, where both parties can exert pressure on each other, a somewhat different game‐theoretical measure for the strength of A 's power is developed.